


The End

by HostisHumaniGeneris



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-12 23:42:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21234542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HostisHumaniGeneris/pseuds/HostisHumaniGeneris
Summary: She was sent from home, spared the destruction of Krypton by being hurled into space.  Like her cousin, her father was sending her to a distant planet, one where she would be safe.Unfortunately, the world she wound up on had ended before she arrived.





	The End

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VampirePaladin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampirePaladin/gifts).

Her cousin was this world’s greatest hero.

That is what she could glen from remnants of this dead world. She had been asleep for a long time, far longer than she thought. She could find scraps of information, pieces of cellulose with an alien script on them, along with images. Some examples of native technology that she managed to force into functionality again.

There he was, a man looking not unlike her Uncle, Jor-El, but younger. Wearing the symbol of his House. Displaying terrific powers under this yellow sun-powers that she had. Somehow, long ago, he had been a savior of this world, a world full of saviors.

Then something happened.

She had no idea what it was, what could have extirpated a race of billions from this world, one with such powerful protectors. Kal-El was chief among them, but there were so many others, Green Lanterns and warrior women and people who could manipulate cosmic forces. This world was astounding at how many individuals there were with the kind of power that they had.

So how did it come to this? She gazed across husks of cities, crumbling monuments to their creators. Metal constructs lined roadways, skeletons virtually identical to a Kryptonians inside. And strewn across streets. 

And the wind rustled and things were quiet.

She had been sent to this planet because it was safe, because Krypton was going to explode. Jor-El’s mad prediction—she had given it some thought, and had been torn. The thought of her uncle being wrong was unlikely, but the cataclysm he was predicting was preposterous and too dire to think about. Her father, apparently agreed with his brother.

She was sent here for her safety, a refugee from a dying world.

A refugee from one dying world to a dead one.

She woke up to disorientation. Under an alien sky so unlike the world she knew. A yellow sun. It provided for her needs, made her so much stronger than she had been. Her eyes could burn and her breath could freeze. She would’ve given into despair soon, waking up in a dead city, except she could move on to the next in seconds.

Despair was creeping in, however. So much of it. City after city across the planet, she found nothing of the lifeforms so much like her, yet alien. Under this strengthening sun, they were as she was under Rao. Her cousin must have lived all his life here, she imagined, gazing upon gray, unbroken desolation in one of the continents on the Northern hemisphere. 

More relics suggested this area was agricultural, machinery and tools meant to harvest foodstuffs that now longer existed here. Large animal skeletons, presumably herbivorous, indicated they had lived fenced in lives. Livestock to feed a populace that no longer existed. 

Her cousin had fought for this world. She’d seen images, of him facing off against numerous foes. He and the others. The warrior woman in red and blue, with a golden rope. So many Lanterns keeping the peace in this sector. This world had been one of heroes.

So how did it end?

There were signs. A crater here, where she gleaned from old artifacts a city used to be. An odd, stone citadel that just did not feel like it was the architecture of the people who lived on this planet. But as she drifted across the ruined world, that was all she was able to glean, hints, echoes of something that had befallen a world-spanning civilization that was gone.

It had been several days, when her search had gone from trying to find the intelligent inhabitants, the things that looked like Kryptonians but had been born to this world. The entire biome of the world had been in chaos, but it wasn’t all over yet. When she stopped obsessively seeking her cousin or intelligent life, more things were apparent. Bacteria were still around—and she found that out the same moment she realized she could see things microscopic in size.

There were bigger things. Tiny creatures, with an external skeleton. Six legs, eight legs, dozens of legs. The scourged oceans, scummy with algae, still had creatures below the depths. Vegetation could be found. The world had been damaged so many native species had gone, but there were living creatures. Loneliness, the ever present, was barely assuaged by the knowledge that there were schools of scaly creatures gliding under seas, preyed upon by amorphous tentacled things.

But the other flying things, sight, gracile creatures that soared on wings and feathers, they drew her attention. She followed them from the waters to land. Emptied cities buzzed with activity, just not that of their builders. The small invertebrates, the flying animals, and all manner of furred vertebrates. Small things squeaked and scuttled in the dark, preyed upon by flying creatures or land animals. 

She observed this circle, predator-prey relations on an alien world, attentively. Trapped on a dead world, there was not much better to do. She had been observing a group of somewhat large animals, gray furred with long maws full of pointed teeth, when they seemed to notice her.

The creatures were wary, skittish. In the world before it ended, they couldn’t have competed with the city builders. In the ruins, they still recognized a larger creature merited distance. That irked her. But she noticed while wary, they were growing less so. They didn't pose a threat to her, so she wanted to observe, see what would happen when curiousity eventually outweighed caution.

After all, it wasn’t like she had anything better to do with her time. 

That was a bit of a lie. She could come up with a way off this planet. Space was full of intelligences, if she put an effort, with the materials on her pod she could probably make contact. But, that could wait, she supposed. Her first days had been trying to find a sign of anyone else. Failing that, she realized if she was stuck on one dead home, after Krypton had exploded, she was lucky, in a way. She escaped Krypton, and had arrived late to whatever had ravaged Earth. 

She’d grow bored, observing the way this world worked, a doomed world that went on after it ended. She might find pockets of the people who had covered this globe—they had to be somewhat adaptable to have spread across this globe. Maybe some space entity would find her, or she’d break down and seek rescue. 

Until then, she had this planet to herself for now. Might as well explore.


End file.
